Shelter
by elismorty
Summary: "Nothing was subtle about the girl. Not her persona, not her features, and certainly not her approach when it came to him." The tripping, stumbling and oftentimes terrifying tale of how Julia and Eli came to be, told in a series of drabbles. Rating will probably change as story continues.


**I'm the kind of writer who rarely ever finishes something they start. For this reason, you'll notice all of my stories are at a standstill, or possibly even discontinued depending on which one it is. No guarantees on those but I wanted to get back into writing again. **

**So this story is going to be a series of drabbles about Julia and Eli, from the time they met to the time she passed. Not all of them will be in order, though the first two are in chronological order. The point isn't order within the story- instead just the fact that each individual story gets told.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated! I'm really writing this as a cathartic kind of release for myself but knowing others are enjoying what I'm putting out helps a ton. Also, each chapter is meant to be short. Normally I write lengthy pieces but this will be an exception.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

**Sharpie**

It began when he smelled the sharp scent of permanent marker crawling up his nostrils.

The scent wasn't a pleasant one by any stretch of the imagination. It was nauseating, headache-inducing. Why anyone would dig out a Sharpie and purposefully use it in a full classroom, he didn't know. Unless they were purposefully trying to antagonize the rest of the students in the room.

And judging by the source, perhaps she was.

It wasn't until the smell got his black combat boot slapping irritably against the linoleum floor that he turned around in his seat, finding the source right before his eyes. She was swiping the tip of the marker along each of her nails, currently on the thumb of her right hand.

She was a lefty.

"...Why are you doing that?" he asked bluntly, disdain lurking heavily in his tone.

She didn't even look up as he spoke, despite it being their very first conversation. It was as though she knew who was addressing her – as though she'd paid him mind before in the past. She might have, for all he knew. He wasn't very attentive to his surroundings, not until meeting her.

It wasn't until she paused dramatically that he could see her face, previously obscured behind her thick, black fringe. It nearly startled him – the stark contrast between her pale skin and the raven locks. What startled him a bit more was how similar her complexion was to his, as if they could have been twins.

"Do you hear that?" she asked, looking to him critically.

Pausing, he withdrew a bit in his seat, his brows furrowing. "Hear what, exactly?"

There was a hint of mischief in her eyes as she smirked, one corner of her mouth lifting before the other. "If you listen really carefully," she started, returning to the meticulous coloring of her nails. "You can hear the distinct sound of me not giving a shit."

Her brand of humor slowly dawned on him, (as he had yet to develop it himself. In the coming months, he would wind up adopting it so completely that she would be forced to wonder who pulled it off better) and he grinned in return, thoroughly amused at her snark.

"So you're not going to cap that potent thing and spare me the migraine?" he retorted, his eyes flicking to the marker and then back to her.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it."

* * *

**Specter**

Maybe he should have known one day she'd end up a ghost haunting him. Even when she was still very much alive and well, she always had a way of sneaking up on him. She'd slink up to him like a cat arching its back, wrapping its tail around the owner possessively and sending a chill straight up their spine. He never saw her coming. She never wanted him to.

The next instance they spoke was on a Thursday, right after the final bell. He was hunched over the hood of Morty, who had yet to be named – we haven't gotten to that part of the story yet. He was merely a battered, damaged hearse adopted by a similarly misguided adolescent boy.

It was raining out just a bit, the air more moist than the ground was for the majority of the day. It was when the vintage hearse always chose to break down, the engine faltering at even the slightest bit of moisture hanging in the air.

He hadn't seen her come up beside him, as per usual.

"Well isn't this a funny sight."

Taken aback, he jerked up at the sudden voice, hitting his head painfully against the barely elevated hood of the car.

After meagerly rubbing the spot to soothe it, his eyes narrowed, tilting his head to see her. "Pardon?"

She didn't seem the least bit fazed by his accidental collision with the metal, staring straight ahead as she leaned against the car. "A morbid vehicle that won't run in morbid weather. Seems like a paradox, no?"

Snorting, he resumed his previous fiddling with various engine parts, hoping that tweaking one would get the car roaring to life. He couldn't call himself a mechanic, only relying on trial and error to drive himself home.

"Normally I have him back up and running sooner, it's just-"

"No you don't." she interjected, rolling her eyes. "You're here for a half hour or more sometimes, trying to get this hunk of metal to move."

This time he knew better than to abruptly stand up, ducking his head cautiously, dodging the hood and straightening out his posture. "Do I have a stalker?" he inquired, half entertained and half terrified by the notion that she paid such close attention to him.

That was the first time he noticed how defined all of her features were, when she turned her head to face him. Nothing was subtle about the girl. Not her persona, not her features, and certainly not her approach when it came to him.

Her nose crinkled, looking to him as if he was some kind of pathetic but oddly endearing animal. "Don't flatter yourself."

With a swifter bend of the back than he was capable of executing, she lowered herself under the hood of the hearse, plucking from her hair a bobby pin.

"Don't. he's fragile-" he began to explain, cut off by the boisterous sound of the engine starting up.

Wiping the pin off on her jeans, she pushed it back into the sloppy bun perched atop her head, then taking in his befuddled reaction.

"How did you do that?" he gaped, still staring at her even as she began to walk around to the front of the car.

"Magic." she called back, opening the passenger side door. "Now I believe you owe me a ride home."

* * *

**Persuasion**

She was there when he got his first leather jacket.

They were both perusing her favorite thrift shop. It was called _The Well_, located in the middle of town, tucked between a bagel shop and a vacant apartment. He wasn't sure how many times he'd passed by the location without noticing it. But she noticed everything.

"You know, for a hearse driving gothic kid..." she drawled, making him cringe significantly at her stereotyping, "You really can't complete the look. Ripped jeans and band tees aren't enough."

Her fingers were gliding along the racks, absentmindedly making contact with each bit of hand-me-down fabric until she touched something leather, immediately scaling back to grasp at it again. Her back bumped into his chest as she backtracked, her eyes narrowing threateningly at the contact. As though he could have predicted her abrupt movement.

Though in truth, he didn't mind the proximity even a little.

"This might make you seem a little more badass..." she mused to herself, holding the jacket in her two hands. Tugging the hanger out from it, she tossed it to him. "Put it on."

"Yes ma'am." he murmured obligingly, slipping it over his black Dead Hand hoodie.

Surveying him, her lips pressed themselves into a thin line. Reaching closer to him, she pulled the hood out from under the heavy jacket, adjusting it over the collar. He couldn't help the tint of pink that overtook his complexion at having her so close. She evoked that strange blushing sensation in him, and he didn't stand a chance at resisting it.

"_Now_ I wouldn't be too ashamed to go on a date with you." she smiled, patting his shoulders.

That was how he knew he had to buy it.

* * *

**Suspension**

The first movie they ever watched together was Edward Scissorhands.

He'd never seen it before, but it was her absolute favorite.

Social leper, cast into asylum not by choice, but because of an unfortunate existence as an experiment gone wrong, wreaking havoc in society.

_Typical movie to find on her endless list of favorites_, he mused.

It was also they first time the two had ever held hands.

For him, the challenge wasn't keeping his attention on the movie (seeing as though he'd already deemed that impossible) but keeping his palms from sweating up an ocean as they sat beside one another on his couch.

She made him so anxious, so innately on edge that he wondered if she'd stop wanting to be friends simply for that fact alone. The moment his fingertips brushed against hers, initiating contact, he'd wondered how grave of a mistake it was to take a chance at affection with her.

He almost wished his own hands were made of sharp metal, impenetrable to all outside forces, and those inside too. Immune to anxiety, to over-thinking.

To absolute terror at the things she could evoke within him. He hadn't realized before that falling in love would be so much like falling while roller skating – flimsy on his feet, without anything to grasp a hold of while he toppled endlessly to the pavement. But he hadn't hit the hard gravel beneath him yet.

He couldn't stop himself from laughing as she lifted his hand from hers, without letting her eyes stray from the screen, and wiped it on his jeans before lacing their fingers together again.

"Don't mind me if I periodically do that." she murmured, a demure smile painted across her lips as she spoke.

He didn't mind at all.


End file.
